Quick and Easy Refrigerator Pickles

After much dawdling trying to find the original, I have finally purchased a new power cord for my old digital camera. Though it’s ten years old and has fewer megapixels, this chunky old Sony has a beautiful Carl Zeiss lens and a lot more manual control than my newer, more portable Casio Exilim. I was really excited to get into the kitchen with it.

Mind you, the last time I really used manual controls on a camera was more years ago than I want to admit, in a college photography class. So these pickle photos are still basically point-and-shoot, but when I brought them up on the computer (the display on the back of this camera is tiny, and it’s hard to tell how good the images are), I was really pleased. They required very little post-processing, starting out crisp, with beautiful color and clarity. I’m delighted with how it captured the delicate translucence of the finished pickles. I’m shrinking the pictures down for ease of loading anyway – megapixels matter a lot less than that lovely lens.

Anyway, you’re probably wondering about the pickles. (Expect more camera ramblings in the future, however – I’m pretty excited about working on my photography.)

It turns out that refrigerator pickles are easy-peasy. Cut up some veggies; boil together water, vinegar, sugar, salt, and spices; pour this brine over your veggies; let them cure overnight; and eat!

More excitingly, these pickles are delicious. They don’t taste like pickles from the store – and really, why would you bother making them if they tasted like pickles from the store? These are very sour and spicy-hot, garlicky and exotic-tasting from the blend of spices – especially, I think, the cinnamon.

The pickling spice I used is from Savory Spice Shop, a growing chain (11 shops and counting) based in Denver. It’s a really lovely store – make sure to visit if you find yourself near one of its locations. Their pickling spice contains cinnamon, peppercorns, mustard seeds, ginger, coriander, dill, mace, allspice, juniper berries, cloves, chiles and crumbled bay leaves. You can buy pickling spice in the grocery store, but I would recommend experimenting: make your own mix from whichever of those spices you have on hand, or any others that sound good to you. Or skip the spices and make a simple garlic pickle.

Though this is my first batch of pickles, I can tell that the recipe is endlessly adaptable, as long as you stick to the proportions of water, sugar, and salt in the brine. (These proportions are from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook.) Substitute zucchini or green beans for the cucumbers. If you want bread-and-butter pickles, add another cup of sugar to the brine. For dill pickles, add 1 cup chopped fresh dill. Play!

Quick Refrigerator Pickles

Vegetable mixture:

2 pounds Kirby cucumbers (I actually used 1 pound, but used a large jar so I needed a full recipe of brine)

1/2 small red or white onion, peeled and sliced (red is lovely but turns the pickles slightly pink)

4 cloves garlic, sliced

1 cinnamon stick, optional

Wash the cucumbers and cut into spears or 1/4-inch-thick rounds. Combine with onion and garlic in a canning jar or heat-resistant bowl with a tight-fitting lid. Set aside.

Brine:

2.25 cups water

1.75 cups white or apple cider vinegar (I used a 50/50 mix)

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon salt

4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

2 teaspoons pickling spice, if using

1/2 teaspoon red chile flakes, optional

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer 10 minutes, then pour over vegetable mixture. Should you find you don’t have enough brine to cover the vegetables, just combine equal parts water and vinegar in pot, bring to a boil, and add to the pickle mixture. Let cool, then cover tightly and transfer to refrigerator. Let cure at least 10 hours. Enjoy!

The pickles should keep up to two weeks in the refrigerator. To re-use brine, boil 5 minutes and pour over a new batch of vegetables. I plan to try green beans soon….

Follow Unfussy Epicure on Facebook!

Share this:

Related

Talk to me!Cancel reply